“Ink in Middle Age”

Thanks to Richard Lopez for this poem, “Ink in Middle Age,” which he wrote in 2010

for jean vengua

drift thru the swift current like an anomaly of spirit

thinking yr tough begets the rough like watching enter the dragon

for the 15th time and just try to do a dropkick that pulls

you by the balls oh the comedy of age

tethered to an ipod the strut inspired by the cure’s ‘just like heaven’

—Richard Lopez

The State of Narrative

humans
blooming
pretexts

Saturday

John Sayles "intimate" interview

the staying power

    of intimate things; a deer I thought

of miniature adult size

                          appears like a small

fox bounding;

but foxes don't bound,

they pad silently across the field

videos

          awake in the morning,

eyes open

             first thing, the mind reviews

the peer editing process

what is that...?     
       details are not just

    text but echoed in the leaves
outside, yesterday's rosebush
ferocious living things, liveliness while

throws of death

     thorns of fletching green

     ripen then pruned down

                                but always

in the middle of it

look around and the very dirt...

sweep it up, the cut branches

lest we hurt

                       bare feet
on the living, dying points

wound down to roots;

         things grow on me

anyway

        while the collapsible

rides the collective;

     flicker in

cartoons: Nast, McKinley's

squalling black babe

   "I walked the White House floor"

night after night," alright

              and the voice of God

LORD

       lord lord lord.
"and it came to me this way"
(oh GOD the dream's voice--

Jane Wyman's,

         mimicking the first

hard phrase heard from an adult

mouth,

        as if from a great distance--

                      as a child)
but now

cranking out

                    mornings

mind goes forth
					

Messenger

I don’t have to
explain and won’t.
Blur of worlds
or words or trees
flashing in the eye
light. The cactus

moving a slender
mouse ear during
earthquake weather.
Idioms are hard-won
language, better to
speak you with, you

in your hoodie and
your messenger
complex. This is
going nowhere, and
must (will) stop here.

Break

Some outcome. In
the middle
of my second
(third?) part-time
gig, I break
for a poem

and shuffle
internally to
dance of the
yoyos, blear-
eyed and yet
still affixed
to this damned
screen

Back from Vertigo

We’re back from Vertigo
What a dank day, and the coffee
grinder was loud; but I’m not
unhappy. There are poems,

for example. And Hitchcock’s
black birds score the wires
above Vertigo and dot
the naked pepper trees.

Plucking dry, pink pepper
berries off the trees
in summer–remember that?

biting them.

The Outcomes

Working on the outcomes
is like cheating on a life,
making the cells align
text left-to-right. But
then, there are frogs
and weather. Tornadoes.
Cakes that fail.

I was searching for
a door in the hedge.
You came out of a tree
on your way to a cul-
de-sac. I asked you
a question; you answered.

Chocolate Ganache

Quiet air, hard frost.
A ganache is forever,
Silly thing. Soft corners,
drizzle, and cordite. Two
glasses. Three words. Ships
on fire. The end of a storm.
Self (ho hum) importance
floating on a sea
of cream.